Highlands Current Audio Stories

By: Highlands Current
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  • Summary

  • The Highlands Current is a nonprofit weekly newspaper and daily website that covers Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York, in the Hudson Highlands. This podcast includes select stories read aloud.
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Episodes
  • Cookie Backlash Turns to Boon

    Cookie Backlash Turns to Boon
    Sep 27 2024
    Homestyle faced criticism over Trump treats
    There was nothing sweet about the phone calls Homestyle Desserts Bakery began receiving last week about its butter cookies featuring images of presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, according to co-owner Laura Timmons.
    The quadrennial tradition, dating back more than two decades, had never drawn controversy until this month, when a Philipstown resident on Facebook denounced Homestyle for putting "the face of a 34-time convicted felon … who incited an attack on our nation's Capitol" on cookies and vowed to stop patronizing the bakery.
    Then the angry calls began, said Timmons on Monday (Sept. 23). "Why would you do that?" "You guys are disgusting." "We're not going to buy from you anymore." "We're going to tell all our friends."
    Standing behind the counter inside the Peekskill location (Homestyle also sells the cookies at its location on Route 301 in Nelsonville), Timmons pointed to a stack of white shipping boxes sitting on a table. The bakery is being inundated with a different type of call: Trump fans placing orders for shipments to Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and other states.
    A story posted by The Journal News on Sept. 20 about the controversy reached Dan Scavino Jr., a Westchester County native who was deputy chief of staff in the Trump White House and is an adviser to the former president's campaign. He reposted it on social media, and Homestyle has been swamped with orders, mostly for Trump treats.
    On Monday, Timmons said she expected to send out 2,000 Trump cookies and 200 with Harris' image. "We were selling even until that post [from Scavino] went out, and then it shifted," she said.
    Homestyle has been putting edible images on cookies and cakes for decades, said Timmons, with clients that have included the Yankees and their players. The visages of the Democratic and Republican candidates for president were introduced on cookies about 25 years ago and meant to be a bipartisan diversion, said Timmons.
    Unfortunately, the hardening divide between Democrats and Republicans has been characterized by increasing hostility. A Pew Research Center poll in 2022 found that growing numbers of partisans view each other as "more closed-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent."
    Passions have led to attacks on businesses, but typically only if they promote one candidate over another. The owner of a Manhattan clothing store, for example, said a man wearing a Trump T-shirt attacked her last month, apparently angered by a pro-Harris poster in her window.
    In a Facebook post in response to the phone calls, Homestyle said that its employees and their family members and friends "hold different beliefs and choices" without threatening each other. "Everybody should be free to choose, and fighting over it is not the answer," said Timmons.
    State Sen. Pete Harckham, a Democrat whose district includes Peekskill, visited the bakery on Sunday (Sept. 22) after hearing about the calls. The senator, who in April 2022 presented Homestyle with a certificate recognizing it as a New York State Historic Business, recorded a video before leaving.
    "I know that we're divided and I know we're polarized, but cookies? Really?" he said, holding a microphone in one hand and a bipartisan order of six cookies for each candidate in the other. "Threatening a bakery is not a productive way to help your candidate."
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    3 mins
  • Suddenly More Appealing: Skilled Trades

    Suddenly More Appealing: Skilled Trades
    Sep 27 2024
    Plenty of jobs, decent wages and less fear of AI
    With abundant, well-paying jobs available across the U.S., and the soaring costs of a four-year college degree, more high school graduates are considering a path that not long ago was seen as less desirable: a "blue collar" career in the skilled trades.
    Only 25 percent of Americans believe it is extremely important to have a college degree to find well-paying employment in the current economy, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. Forty percent of respondents felt a degree was not important at all.
    Skillwork, a Nebraska-based agency that connects employers with skilled workers, estimates there are nearly 3 million unfilled trade jobs in the U.S., including some 500,000 in manufacturing. It cited a plumbing company in Seattle where many employees earn more than $100,000 annually and an electrician in Ithaca who makes $90 an hour, which translates to $172,000 a year.
    Michele Santiago, a guidance counselor at Beacon High School for 20 years, said she's seen an uptick in interest in the skilled trades from students and parents. "Ten percent of our 11th and 12th graders now attend the Dutchess BOCES Career and Technical Institute" in Poughkeepsie, she said.
    BOCES stands for Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which offers vocational training for students in districts that contribute funding. It also provides training in fields such as graphic design, fashion design, and film and audio for students who may pursue four-year degrees.
    Students in the 10th to 12th grades also can attend the annual Hudson Valley Construction Career Day, held in the spring. "It's hands-on," Santiago said. "Students speak to members of local unions about their trade, apprenticeship programs and benefits of being in a trade union."
    In Cold Spring, about 10 percent of the juniors and seniors at Haldane High School receive vocational training at the Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES in Yorktown Heights, said Amanda Cotchen, a Haldane guidance counselor. "Students know that a trade is an option; we promote career readiness as opposed to just a college focus," she said.
    Tommy Andrews, 18, a recent Haldane graduate, is pursuing a trade by another route: the military. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve and will attend boot camp in December before training to become a construction electrician. "I'll make up to $1,000 a week during the 22 weeks of boot camp and trade school," Andrews said. "And I'll receive a $20,000 bonus for signing up. I can't wait to go."
    As part of a six-year commitment, he'll work one weekend a month plus a two-week stint each summer. He hopes to land a full-time job through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Although the Air Force and Army also offer training in skilled trades, the Navy was an easy choice for Andrews because his father and grandfather served.
    Stephen Lowery, director of career and technical education at Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES, said college costs and rising student debt have changed the landscape over the past five years. Depending on the trade, BOCES grads can step out of high school into a job that pays as much as $70,000 a year.
    Lowery also has seen a shift in parental attitudes. "Parents who have always pushed going to college now see they won't have to pay that big tuition, and their kids are going to get a good job doing something they love," he said.
    Asked to pick the five trades offering job opportunities for BOCES grads, Lowery quickly named electrical; welding; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); carpentry; and landscaping-urban forestry.
    While the role of trade unions has declined in recent decades, he sees a resurgence there, as well, because unions realize workforces are aging and they need to recruit younger members. He pointed to the Sheet Metal Workers as one union that has been working closely with BOCES to fill its dwindling ranks.
    Nicholas Millas, the principal at Dutchess BOCES Career and Techn...
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    6 mins
  • MTA Approves Capital Plan

    MTA Approves Capital Plan
    Sep 27 2024
    Spending includes Hudson Line upgrades
    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday (Sept. 25) approved a $68 billion capital plan that runs through 2029 and will shore up Metro-North's Hudson Line to better withstand the effects of global warming.
    "The board is pretty proud of this plan," said Neal Zuckerman, a Philipstown resident who represents Putnam County on the board and heads its finance committee. "It's $13 billion larger than our last capital plan. It's equally balanced between the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North. That hasn't been the case in a long time, even though our ridership is basically the same."
    The only outstanding question - which was also on the table for the previous plan, which covered 2020 to 2024 - is where the money will come from. Many projects from the previous plan are on hold because Gov. Kathy Hochul in June "paused" a congestion-pricing plan that had been expected to provide the MTA with $15 billion for capital projects. Hochul vowed to replace that funding but has not said how it will be done.
    The new capital plan does not have any funding from congestion pricing in it. Zuckerman said that the board has identified where about half the funding it needs will come from. "It's the responsibility of the governor and the Legislature to come up with" the rest, he said.
    The new plan mostly sticks to maintenance and upgrades instead of initiatives, except for a project to convert a lightly used freight line into a commuter rail connecting Roosevelt Avenue in Queens with the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
    For the Hudson Line, which includes Metro-North stops in Garrison, Cold Spring and Beacon, the plan allocates $800 million toward improvements recommended earlier this year in its Climate Resilience Roadmap. They include rehabilitating shorelines, stabilizing slopes and improving drainage. Hudson Line riders have faced delays because of flooding and mudslides caused by increasingly frequent extreme weather.
    The plan also includes an upgrade to the Brewster train yard that will allow the Hudson Line to utilize the next generation of railcars. Zuckerman said there are still subway and railcars in use that went into service 40 years ago, when the MTA unveiled its first capital plan. Upgrading the cars should increase what he said is riders' No. 1 concern: reliability.
    "What riders care about the most is on-time performance: 'Did I arrive on time?' 'Did I arrive safely?' 'Was my ride smooth and comfortable?'" Zuckerman said. "Even with its older cars, the MTA delivers on that mission. The problem is, when the cars reach a certain age, the maintenance costs become prohibitive."
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    2 mins
Art Politics & Government
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